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Monthly Archives: May 2014

Question: When do you know a union trying to unionize a group of workers has worn out its welcome?

Answer: When the union’s supporters tell the union to go away.

A mere four months after the United Auto Workers’ devastating defeat at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, pro-union workers at Mercedes-Benz’s plant in Alabama want the UAW to go away.

While the UAW had had more than the minimum amount of signed union authorization cards to file for an NLRB election, according to the union supporters, the union refused to file for an election—wanting a super majority (65%) of signed cards before filing.

Now, reports AL.com, many of the union’s cards have expired. This means that the UAW’s supporters must begin re-signing employees whose signatures have gone stale.

This seems to have the now-ex UAW supporters abandoning the UAW’s effort and ready to opt for a different union, including the International Association of Machinists.

“This has gone on for two-and-half years, and people are burnt out,” said Kirk Garner, a 13-year Mercedes employee and union supporter. “It’s over.”

Garner and Jim Spitzley, another longtime employee, have been key spokesmen for pro-union employees, and they have worked closely with the UAW on the campaign.

But they have grown increasingly frustrated with the UAW’s failure to file for an election.

At one point, the men say, the campaign had enough union authorization cards to legally file for an election, as more than 30 percent of the plant’s hourly production and maintenance workers had signed one.

But the UAW was pushing for a much higher percentage, 65 percent, because it wanted a sure win, they said.

“It’s all about the image with the UAW, and it’s not about the workers,” Spitzley said.

….

“We’re dedicated to the cause of furthering workers’ rights,” Garner said. “We just don’t want to do it with the UAW.”

Although the AFL-CIO—the federation comprised of 56 unions—has given the UAW jurisdiction over the auto industry (which makes the Machinists’ union an unlikely replacement), there are multiple unaffiliated unions that are not bound by the AFL-CIO’s jurisdictional standards.

I know, I’m late again. Turns out after being sick my body’s just been exhausted recovering. We’ll be better off next week.

Ajit Pai came to RedState on Friday to tell us about the Zapple Doctrine was being used by the FCC to stifle freedom of speech, specifically to try to hinder Scott Walker. The Zapple Doctrine is now dead, but we need to check the FCC to keep it from returning.

By the way, the extreme Net Neutrality alternative pushed by the far left, Title II Reclassification? It’s even worse, and runs directly counter to the deregulatory purpose of the Telecommunications Act.

Speaking of House Republicans, they also want to protect the Internet and freedom of speech on the Internet by keeping the UN, Russia, and China from hijacking ICANN, the organization that runs a lot of the Internet’s basic rules of the road, and keeps different networks compatible with each other. Naturally the surrendercrats and their industry donors think differently, showing how ridiculous people are when they say Republicans and Democrats are all the same.

The traitor Edward Snowden may have gotten an infomercial on NBC, but a href=”http://thehill.com/policy/technology/207622-snowden-email-fell-short-of-nsa-criticism”>NSA refuted his claims in that interview. It’s amusing though to see that he’s actually claiming that the document release made by NSA was incomplete and misleading. The guy who fled to China and Russia wants us to believe his documents are full and genuine, but NSA’s are cherrypicked and lying. Heh.

First off, the DCCC is planning to dump about three quarters of a million dollars in ad buys for Esty’s campaign. This is a little surprising, because the actual Republican candidate for that district is still kind of up in the air.

There’s also more than a touch of scandal potentially looming over Esty’s general campaign this year: back in 2013 she had to return campaign contributions that turned out to have come from companies and individuals who were simultaneously dealing with husband Dan Esty, in his role of state energy/environmental commissioner (Esty has since resigned his position).

And now Elizabeth Esty is voting like a North Carolina Blue Dog trying to keep a shaky seat. Delays on Obamacare mandates (while still voting against repeal of the law). Voting to force Eric Holder to appoint a special counsel on the IRS scandal. And the latest: Esty’s fervent nega-embrace of ousted VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.

All in all, things sound like Elizabeth Esty is not happy with her internal polling. Which, if it is bad, would also have to be truly awful, given that we’re still waiting on the aforementioned GOP candidate for that district. Is there another shoe set to drop in that race, or is this just first-term jitters by the Congresswoman? Guess we’ll find out pretty soon.